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Library of The Theological Seminary 


PRINCETON ° NEW JERSEY 


C=) 


PRESENTED BY 
The Estate of 
Victor H, Lukens 





a: mn 1 
ci 24 oro BP 


UD ate 








ee OF VATS ERS 
RQ Seat a? > 
‘ A 


: 





BY 


HELEN MARY ‘BOULNOIS 





WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 


T. TROWARD 











! Ne EO 
= (ED ee AG 
FE AEN OS, 
<i aay} 






NEW YORK 
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 


681 Firta AVENUE 








Copyright, 1924, 
By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 





All rights reserved 


Printed in the United States of America 


FOREWORD 


The argument is in no way aimed against 
medical science. This little book is pri- 
marily intended to help people to help them- 
selves, but also to help them to help their 
physicians. Able men for centuries have de- 
voted deep study and the strength of their 
lives to the understanding of sickness and 
health. They are instruments, and powerful 
instruments, for good in the scheme of the 
world. Never would we belittle the skill and 
usefulness of their modern surgery, nor 
‘‘that mystery of healing’’ they have learned 
‘‘that les hid among the green things of 
God.’’ 





CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION (By Thomas Troward) 


THE INNER SELF 
Somer BREAD IN LIFE 
SELF AND OTHERS 


A Frew WorDSs ON THE SUBCONSCIOUS 
MIND 


How To GuARD AGAINST HyPNOTISM 
HEALING BY THE CHECKING OF SIN 
HELP IN PAIN . 

POWER IN FORGIVENESS . 


Tur SECOND SELF . Y Fer vel 


fe 


DAILY SPIRITUAL EXERCISES . 


Tue Roap to ACHIEVEMENT . 


Vil 





INTRODUCTION 


—_ 


No words of mine are required to em- 
phasize the message so clearly given in this 
little book. 

There is at the present time a very gen- 
eral awakening to the great truth that man 
is a spiritual being—that that self-conscious- 
ness which in each of us expresses itself by 
the words ‘‘I am”? is the self-recognition of 
a spiritual entity; and coupled with this 
there is the recognition of the fact that the 
whole world of external phenomena has 
great spiritual laws of causation behind it. 

No doubt these are fundamental truths, 
and for this very reason it is the more im- 
portant to guard against their misappre- 
hension. The misapprehension which ap- 
pears in some of the teaching of the present 
day is in the failure to see that the innermost 
being, which is the ‘‘I am’’ in each of us, 
must be derived from a yet higher source of 
similar consciousness—in a word, that how- 

1X 


EAS INTRODUCTION 


ever great may be the powers latent in the 
human soul, they require the guidance of a 
Supreme Intelligence for their right use, and 
the inflowing of a Supreme Life for their 
maintenance and increase. If this is omitted 
we have got only a half-truth, which is pro- 
verbially a dangerous thing. 

These are the two opposite ways of look- 
ing at our spiritual nature—the right- and 
left-hand paths respectively, and the contest 
of the future must necessarily be between 
these two modes of thought. As soon as we 
realize the truth of our spiritual being we 
find ourselves compelled to take one side or 
the other, for there is no intermediate way. 
Therefore was Christ manifested, that we 
should have a firm foundation on which to 
realize our Divine Sonship, and so take up 
our right position in relation to the Father 
of our spirits—an attitude of worship, rever- 
ence, trust, and love. They are the sons of 
God who are led by the Spirit of God (Rom. 
viii. 14), for they become partakers of the 
Divine nature (II Peter 14). When we 
recognize our spiritual nature on this basis 
we need set no limits to the possibilities of 
our development, as Christ Himself tells us 


INTRODUCTION xi 


in His parable of the return of the prodigal 
son to the Father, where the shoes symbolize 
the basis, or standing-ground, of the new 
development, the robe its clothing of the 
whole personality, and the ring the authority 
given to the son in the house of his Father. 

The rapidly multiplying literature on 
psychological subjects implies in every in- 
stance one of two positions—faith in God 
giving rise to worship, or practical atheism. 
Even if the book be purely scientific, not 
touching the higher spiritual question, but 
dealing strictly with the observation of 
phenomena, still the reader must necessarily 
adapt the knowledge thus acquired to his 
own mental attitude, and it is therefore with 
much pleasure that I commend the present 
volume as one belonging to the literature of 
the Right-hand Path. 

T. TRowarp. 





THE HEALING POWER 


pia aM Py Bis 
Me wit > , F Ly ‘ 
? it ; rt f aber’ ‘ UBal 
vi: th Nie : Yi he A \ , 4 
" hae Les WW “ Y 7 
* iy ) ya uM ' 7 r hive 
- 1 e , j Wey Me { or ; pt 
t ‘ cr ye to Ta > 
j ‘ . Titn if - fee ies a q 
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: . RL | 





Direct, control, suggest this day 
All I design, or do, or say; 
That all my powers, with all 


their might, 
In Thy sole glory may unite. 
. Bisuor Ken. 
ae 
ae ae 
|) 4c eee 


THE HEALING POWER 


CHAPTER I 
THE INNER SELF 


THERE is a great power of healing in this 
world of ours. It is the force of life work- 
ing invisibly within each one of us. 

What is it makes me ‘‘I’’? Every one is 
‘1’? to themselves. There must be but few 
who have never said to themselves: ‘‘Why 
am I, I? What made me ‘I’ instead of some 
one else’s ‘I’?”’ 

Idle questions, that no man can answer. 

Yet, until we learn life’s mastery, each 
one of us is the tool of this unknown power 
of life, expressing itself through our bodies. 

Is our ‘‘I’’ and our inner power of life 
identical? Or are we tossed and pushed by 
something even more intimate, more master- 
ful, within us than that which each one of us 
calls ‘‘myself’’? For instance, there is the 


4 THE HEALING POWER 


fact that every one we meet is either 
attracted or repelled by us, and that we are 
attracted or repelled by them. There is the 
further fact that where we find ourselves 
repelling, we are losing force, strength and 
health; while where we find ourselves attract- 
ing we increase in health, strength and force. 
Here there are two powers, working within 
ourselves for and against us—the power of 
attraction and power of repulsion. 

Yet how is the knowledge of this to assist 
us; for who can help their likes and dislikes? 

Then is there an ‘‘I’’? within us, to whom 
we do not dictate? An essential being, who 
makes our very ego; and yet is not under 
control? 

Can we attain to the ruling of this inner 
identity? Can we live so closely in touch 
with the unseen power of life, making of us 
its channel, that we shall no longer be slaves, 
driven, it seems, sometimes by caprice—but 
make of this power our chosen comrade, our 
help-mate? Can we learn to strengthen the 
forces that work to the healing of our lives? 
Can we expel with a firm heart those im- 
pulses that threaten (not from without but 
from within) to wreck our happiness? 


THE INNER SELF 5 


Our likes and dislikes seem to rise from 
unknown depths within us, make their pres- 
ence felt, declare our good and our evil. At 
such moments we feel the presence of an 
inner identity, feel its insistent pressure and 
hear its tones. 

That still voice, whose tones rarely rise 
to the surface, is speaking, silently, unheard, 
all the time within us without any cessation. 
It is sending messages to and fro throughout 
our body, whether we sleep or wake, whether 
we walk or lie, whether we are ill or well, 
whether we are aware of its influence or 
whether we are not. It is not only silently 
directing—it is implicitly obeyed by every 
nerve, pulse-beat, vein in our bodies. It 
rules us for happiness or misery, for health 
or ill-health. 

Most of us have seen some woman blossom 
into unexpected beauty because she is happy. 
This is a common manifestation of power 
resident in herself. There is nothing we can 
see in some man who has appeared in her 
life to make her glow with softened yet 
radiating charm of life and beauty. He has 
cast no spell upon her. He has simply given 
her an honest affection. Yet emotions of 


6 THE HEALING POWER 


gladness, raised in her, have sent messages 
over her body, so that not only her mind is 
elevated but its visible manifestation be- 
comes incorporate in health and beauty. 

_ And why is there bodily relief and refresh- 
ment in happiness—physical discomfort in 
misery? 

Ts it not that when happy we feel a strain 
removed? That everything becomes more 
natural? We seem to be more the whole self, 
to be expanding, growing, developing? Our 
inheritance is reached, or being reached. We 
‘are nearing the fulness of being. 

Outside causes of happiness are taken as 
examples; because every thinking man knows 
how his own health and the health of those 
around him is swayed and influenced by that 
subtle electricity, called happiness. He 
knows that depression caused by misery is 
likely to affect the body. And yet we cannot 
shun grief; and no suggestion has yet been 
given of assisting the body, except by that 
external condition of happiness which is not 
under the direct control of most human 
beings to command for themselves. 

But it is more so than most of us believe. 

Let us return to that hidden ego, which 


THE INNER SELF 7 


dictates—often justly—our likes and dis- 
likes, warns or encourages. It is the most 
deep-seated part of us that we can recog- 
nize. It is the inmost ‘‘I.’’ 

We have seen that external happiness will: 
set it favourably in action to work for good 
and bless us with benefits. 

Can we without the accidental interference 
of things beyond our grasp influence this 
inner self, so that in turn it may influence us 
- to our greater happiness, health and pros- 
perity? 

It is our aim to prove the possibility of 
an inward happiness—a source that can be 
unfailingly tapped, in trying moments, as 
well as in successful ones. 

ls may be many and varied; but there is 
only one power of health and healing in the 
world—the inner uprush of life, driving 
physical evils out before it, and, in spite of 
poverty, sorrow or suffering, renewing one’s 
being at its source. 

Doctors strive to eliminate all that inter- 
feres with this natural flow of life; but no 
doctor can place it there when absent. 

A certain creative and re-creative power 
is, however, the natural inheritance of man, 


8 THE HEALING POWER 


if he but employ his free-will rightly in the 
choice of thought. 

It is useless attempting once and for all 
authoritatively to state that the inside ‘‘I’’ 
is to be different in future. It would pay not 
the slightest heed. 

But by constant self-suggestion, by feed- 
ing this essential self with good thought, with 
gentle, restful thought, by nourishing its 
strength and vitality indirectly through the 
action of the mind, we can lead it into such 
paths of peace that the whole being, 
nourished at its centre, will right its wrongs, 
increase in vigour, come round like a 
stricken ship on firm helm and sail forth on 
seas—calm or turbulent—secure in its own 
good foundations. 

Gradually, slowly but very surely, the 
essential self adjusts itself. As in the out- 
side happiness spoken of earlier, so do we 
feel a strain removed. Everything becomes 
more natural. We seem to be more the whole 
self—to be expanding, growing, developing. 

Little by little outer circumstances suc- 
cumb to the quiet inward strength. Sickness 
is replaced by positive health. Poverty is 
ousted. Even the suffering caused by others 


THE INNER SELF 9 


takes a more just level: and our own quiet, 
inner attitude, silent and unobtrusive, com- 
mands tne immediate world. 

Yet with what thought is it best to comfort, 
feed and lead this spirit deep within the 
breast? 

That is a question for each one of us as 
human souls to answer. 

First know, deep within, what we truly be- 
lieve. Then take that Bread of life, eat of 
it, nourish the inner self, and as we do, so 
shall we grow, not only in inward grace, but 
also in bodily, external health, strength and 
vigour. 


CHAPTER II 
SOME BREAD IN LIFE 


THERE are few of us in moments of travail, 
in bodily or mental distress, who can go out 
on to nature’s broad breast, wandering over 
fields, moors, woods or cliffs without feeling 
some message, some balm from the Great 
Spirit, thus visibly manifesting His creation. 

It is at such moments that the spring of 
life within seems renewed by something 
greater than itself—something external, yet 
infinitely internal. Now is the time to pause, 
to draw breath and—not idly to repeat—but 
to know: ‘‘The Spirit of God hath made me. 
The breath of the Almighty hath given me 
life.”’ 

And the spirit within will be conscious of 
relief, because it will be resting in its own 
Divine Source. 

And what is this spirit? 

We came—we know not whence. We go— 

10 


SOME BREAD IN LIFE 11 


we know not whither. But there is no savage 
SO savage, no poor and outcast so poor and 
outcast, but far inside himself he does not 
know that the life within, often so storm- 
tossed, is deeper, larger, finer than the cir- 
cumstance of the moment, harassing and tor- 
menting him. © 

Does this inner depth exist? 

Does it cry out at the injustice of life? 
Does it ask for larger spheres in which it 
may have scope? 

If we know this inner existence, we know 
our own spirit; and there is but one way to 
give it the nourishment it craves. We may 
try to tempt it with outward circumstances, 
to soothe it with toys that seem to bring hap- 
piness to others; but the spirit within will 
never find its central spot, nor its own 
activity for which it hungers, until allied 
with forces greater than itself. 

Forces exist. Such forces as justice, gen- 
erosity, love. They tower above us. We 
may try to elude them. They are there. 
And when we obey and use them we are never 
these things themselves. We are the 
channels through which they pass. 

It is useless to call to outward things to 


12 THE HEALING POWER 


help us in distress. First call in to our own 
deepest depth. Find the one suffering in the 
breast, as a little child suffers. Ally it to the 
One, who alone can comfort it; and ally it 
by realizing we are not alone. 

Each one of us is a spark from the Eternal 
Fire. Each one is a life from the One Life. 
Through us the All-Father is hurt. The 
Spirit of Life, which makes of us a channel, 
is injured by our injury. And yet how little 
injured! Life itself sweeps on, regardless of 
the falling leaves. That Life is in us—ours 
so long as we are alive. Use it! Let the 
leaves fall. Life eternal is the essence of be- 
ing, of the being of all those whom we love. 
The seeming appearance of the moment 
passes. Let the leaves fall! While we stand 
firm on this everlasting foundation of Life. 
Live in this spirit. Be conscious of this 
spirit. Do not believe in immortality; but— 
if only for the space of a moment—be im- 
mortal. 

We can use this talisman on the car, in the 
subway, on the pavement, as we wait for ad- 
mittance outside a door. We can keep a 
strong, inspiring thought ready at call. 

‘““The Spirit of God hath made me!’’ Or 


SOME BREAD IN LIFE 13 


if this does not suit, search for one’s own 
thought. No one but the own self can ever 
know its inmost comfort. Having found it— 
do not fear reiteration. The spirit within 
works slowly, but will feed and expand upon 
this thought, throwing new light into the 
mind, new vigour into organs and limbs, as 
surely as it is fed. 

It is true that willing comrade, the spirit, 
keeps going all the time. It would see us out 
to the end of our days; but in what sort of 
way, if starved and neglected? 

To take a practical example: Perhaps we 
tire easily. Do not wait till tired, but re- 
mind ourselves on waking that the essence of 
being is of spirit, and that spirit does not 
tire, that its supply is not cut off, it is ours 
to take. And as we set forth, remind our- 
selves again that it is by the power of spirit 
that we move, using its elasticity, its fresh- 
ness. Even if we are strong, be strong with 
a strength greater than our own. 

Yet this quietly growing change, this hap- 
piness of the inward spirit, is not a patent 
medicine. It is impossible to write prescrip- 
tions for headache or lung trouble. For any 
specific complaint it may be well to consult 


14 THE HEALING POWER 


a doctor; but this can be confidently affirmed: 
his treatment is more likely to progress fa- 
vourably with those who are steadily set upon 
finding that health and peace, undoubtedly 
within them, that the world knoweth not, and 
is powerless to give or take away. 

Moreover in the steady growth of inward 
spirit that will certainly follow on quiet affir- 
mations, many troubles of the flesh will slip 
away almost imperceptibly. We need not 
force the pace, but apply the new-found 
knowledge to every kind of trouble that may 
beset. Slip for one instant back to the very 
centre of being. Acknowledge the source. 
Perplexity may be bodily or mental; but a 
fresh stream of life—though it may not in- 
stantly nor miraculously sweep away the 
obstacle—will give us in ourselves an im- 
petus to come up successfully against it. 

This does not mean that we shall have to 
struggle more. Probably far less. 

Should an engine find itself trying to 
make way in a ploughed field, how exasperat- 
ingly futile would be its efforts. Every fresh 
strain would only plunge it deeper in the 
yielding soil. Yet with what sense of power, 
what ease could it push its way when once 


SOME BREAD IN LIFE 15 


on the rails! This is the difference between 
working on own-power and on God-power. 
That moment, spent in realizing the inner 
self, hidden in Him, will set us on the rails. 
We shall no longer be pushing and striving, 
but letting free the chafed spirit within us 
to do its own chosen work. 

And with every little achievement, even 
with the attempt, a new sense of happiness 
and peace arises in the heart. 

Too often this sense of peace has been 
' preached as something essential for the next 
world, but quite unpractical in any applica- 
tion to this. No falser doctrine was ever 
uttered. It is here and now that the expand- 
ing spirit will better every condition of life. 
‘Now are we the sons of God.”’ 

Enter into this consciousness. Call our- 
selves this splendid name, as we go off to 
business in the morning. Taste now the liv- 
ing goodness of our God. 

Live now in the eternal habitation. It is 
ours. It is springing to life and joy deeply 
within our own aching breast. 

What makes us sad? It is because this 
life is longing to burst from its prison walls. 

But we have lost a dear one? He may 


16 THE HEALING POWER 


have gone beyond these limitations, and yet 
be nearer than we think. 

Know that we are truly alive—through our 
own immortality feel his—and the separa- 
tion of his death will not so tightly encom- 
pass us. 

Two immortalities are with us: Life and 
Love. We cannot breathe without reflecting 
life. We can never be so miserable that we 
do not know love. 

Possibly one of the two may teem for us 
with more thought, power and electricity 
than the other. An instant’s reflection will 
tell which will be the stronger force. 

Use that force. It is the healer. We are 
of course using it; but let us use it con- 
sciously. 

In sickness or in pain, that force in the 
brain will relieve us. ‘‘Life! Life! I am 
alive.’’ 

Feel it stinging and singing through 
nerves and sinews. 

And Love: 

‘‘He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in 
God, and God in him.”’ 

Realize love. 

Reflect love from our Maker. Know the 


SOME BREAD IN LIFE 17 


true self encompassed by His everlasting 
love; and pass it largely to His creatures. 

Immortality will well up and surge within 
us, blessing us as it comes, blessing others 
as we pass upon our way. 


CHAPTER III 
SELF AND OTHERS 


THE charge might be brought that so far 
this little book has dealt too intimately with 
Self. Cheery people with an open glance 
upon the good of others might condemn it as 
self-centred. 

But it need not be so. Indeed, for the true 
adjustment of that inward self, it must not 
be so. 

The gifts of the spirit cannot be placed 
under a bushel, nor be hid in a napkin. Like 
other fire, deprive them of the opportunity 
of shining and they will soon be extinguished. 

The ego at rest within its own breast, 
nourished and happy, is not only content in 
itself, but is better attuned, more helpful to 
others; and as we receive so must we give. 
It is the only way to renew supply. 

If we give sense of life wherever we go, 
life itself will pour freely into and from us. 

18 


SELF AND OTHERS 19 


There are people who are more invigorat- 
ing than mountain air to meet. We want 
them when we are ill. We cling to them in 
SOrrow. 

Be one of those people. 

We cannot do it of ourselves. Our own 
strength, our own cheeriness will carry very 
little way; but deep within we are reflecting 
something infinitely greater. Seek that 
strength, employ it, knowing that it is 
' stronger, sweeter, more everlasting than 
anything we can be alone and unaided. 

There are Forces of Love, Gentleness, 
Courtesy, waiting to make us their channel. 

Dip deeply into this well, springing up 
within our own breasts to everlasting life. 

‘Courtesy costs nothing!’’ How often 
one hears it said, almost as if in excuse for 
deeds of kindness. Courtesy is to be had 
for the taking. Take it and use it. This is 
daily bread to be taken and eaten. Eaten for 
the sustenance and support of our own 
spirit—the Heavenly Bread that no man can 
break, unless his neighbour be there to share 
it. 

Yet, if dealing with one’s own bodily 
suffering, it may seem as if a great deal of 


20 THE HEALING POWER 


thought and healing power is being brought 
to bear, perhaps too exclusively, upon the 
self. 

It is not so. 

It is very meet, right and our bounden 
‘duty to summon the forces of Life and Love 
into the one channel under our immediate 
control. | f 

The body is given us for direct tillage. 
We have to let the Breath of Life pass 
through and vivify this dust of the earth; 
and first show forth the power of Spirit 
through the garment that God has given us. 
Nor are we doing this to ourselves alone. 

Every time the body is lifted and raised 
into higher, spiritual vibration, we have 
lifted, not only the self, but humanity. 

A problem is being solved for all; and so 
much nearer are we knit each to the other 
than we in our blindness see, that the whole 
race consciousness is raised by the effort of 
one of its members. 

Each time the Light of God shines through 
our limbs, shines through our life, humanity 
is benefited. Those around us are doubtless 
lifted by the mere fact that we are letting 
the Light shine through us. Such people are 


SELF AND OTHERS 21 


sought—not because they are telling of 
things that others may not be ready to hear 
—but because good works are imperceptibly 
becoming visible, and, all unknown to them- 
selves, they draw others to their Father in 
Heaven, Who is thus manifesting Himself. 

Nothing is more infectious than cheeri- 
ness, unless it is depression. And the cheery 
man is building up, making, achieving, what- 
ever he may be at, if he is only sweeping a 
’ erossing; while the grizzler is breaking down, 
lowering, destroying, not only his own health 
and happiness, but the health and happiness 
of those who use his crossing. 

Yet there can be an aggressive cheerful- 
ness, the outcome of loud animal spirits, that 
can be more depressing to weaker brethren 
than any melancholy. It is the wrong cheer- 
fulness. It is founded on accident, and may 
collapse at any moment. It is built on shift- 
ing, human sand; it does not rest on the 
Divine rock. The right cheerfulness is not 
noisy, nor aggressive. It does not bubble up 
suddenly and collapse. It is not of the body; 
but of the deathless spirit. 

The moment that we become a channel for 
this cheerfulness we relieve not only our- 


22 THE HEALING POWER 


selves but others; for it is replete with strong | 
healing power. 

So many ills in life go to make up a great 
ill. Every one knows how the right kind of 
cheerfulness not only helps but sometimes 
heals these little ills. 

Furthermore, so soon as we carry a smil- 
ing face of strong and steady cheer, so soon 
do we possess positive, magnetic personality. . 

The smiling flower-girl sells more than her 
roses. And when active, positive good is 
thus spread, we reach a state of being which 
not only adds to strength, but makes us less 
receptive and open to ill. 

If we are so placed by circumstances of 
life that we can do nothing else for others, be 
cheerful, and we are helping every living 
creature that we meet. 

This cheerfulness is ours. Ours by the 
presence of the spirit, deep-seated in the 
breast. 

That spirit within us is infinitely loving. 
It wants to love. We are starving it, if we 
do not let it love. Half the time that we form 
a dislike it is because the spirit within us 
wants to love, and is disappointed because it 
cannot. 


SELF AND OTHERS 23 


Dislike is a weak, poor, negative force. It 
takes its strength—and it can be strong— 
from thwarted love. 

Perhaps where love is thus thwarted and 
hurt, it should turn to pity, instead of dislike. 

Not the world’s pity—but Divine pity. 


CHAPTER IV 
A FEW WORDS ON THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 


Unnapriny a slovenly use of the word sub- 
conscious has arisen. One constantly hears 
the word glibly employed where in past time 
the word ‘‘unconscious’’?’ would have been 
simply and correctly used; because in many 
cases the speaker is alluding to the uncon- 
Scious action of the exposed or known por- 
tion of the brain. But the subconscious lies 
far deeper, and is safely hidden—as its name 
denotes—from the consciousness of man. 

The theory is that the mind of man is as a 
coral island. One portion is above the sea 
and plainly visible. Although this is what 
one might call the island, it is only a point, 
an upfling of a great structure of reef, most 
of which remains unknown, beneath the sur- 
face of the water. There is an unknown tract 
of mind in man, as with the submerged coral 

24 


WORDS ON SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 25 


reefs. It has been aptly termed the sub- 
conscious mind. 

Yet another way to realize the theory is to 
imagine the mind as a round object, split 
into two hemispheres. The first portion, or 
hemisphere, is provided with an opening 
door, setting it at the service of its owner. 
Into this one can enter as into a cupboard, 
putting in and taking out recollections and 
knowledge as we require them, according to 
storage power, to individual tidiness and 
energy. The portion, in fact, familiar and 
well known as the mind. 

But behind that hemisphere is another 
with locked door, to which no man ean fit a 
key. Into this veiled, shut mind passes in- 
delibly and for ever every single scene, word, 
act of our lives, there to be impressed, never 
to be forgotten; yet closed. 

Three examples are commonly given of 
the rare revelation of this hidden mind to the 
human consciousness. 

The first is that moment, common to many 
of us, of fancying a thing has happened pre- 
viously. The occurrence comes to us with a 
certain staleness; sometimes mercifully, in 
the ease of a shock. Words uttered have 


26 THE HEALING POWER 


been heard before. Things seen were seen 
already. Somewhere, somehow, one knew all 
about it before it occurred. 

The front hemisphere, or conscious por- 
tion of the brain, has been momentarily 
lulled (possibly through shock or merely 
through fatigue), so that the back, or hidden 
portion of the mind, unknown to oneself, has 
grasped the situation; and it thus comes to 
the front hemisphere (of which alone one is 
conscious) with an inevitable sense of stale- 
ness, or rather of previous earlier knowl- 
edge. 

The second revelation is in that moment 
sometimes recorded by the dying; especially 
by those who have nearly succumbed to 
drowning. A moment, in which, like a flash 
of lightning illuminating a whole landscape 
on a dark night, they see every detail, hear 
every spoken word, recollect every act 
of their lives, and, incredible as it may 
appear, know all these things instantaneously 
and not (as we alone can know them) in se- 
quence. The rending of the veil, concealing 
the back hemisphere, and thus bringing the 
hidden portion of the mind to consciousness, 
offers an explanation of this phenomenon. 


WORDS ON SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 27 


Lastly there are the phenomena of unusual 
memory, clairvoyance, recollection long-lost 
and revealed under hypnotism, marvellous 
reckoning powers, etc. An example may be 
cited in the well-authenticated story of the 
German servant girl, who, while ill and de- 
lirious, repeated long stanzas of Latin and 
Greek, languages with which she was utterly 
unfamiliar. This occurrence was traced 
back to the fact that, as an orphan child, she 
had sat in the kitchen of the village priest, 
nursing her doll by the open door, while on 
wet days he paraded the corridor, repeating 
lines from his favourite poets, little thinking 
that the words were being indelibly im- 
pressed on the unknown portion of the 
unheeding child’s ever attentive, hidden 
mind. 

But there is a farther field than that of 
which we have been speaking, for the activi- 
ties of the hidden mind. Scientists and doc- 
tors for many years have spoken of ‘‘uncon- 
scious cerebration.’’ 

It is the task of some hidden portion of 
our brains to guard and guide our internal 
organization. Consciously we tell our limbs 
to run or walk, sit or lie. Some unconscious 


28 THE HEALING POWER 


portion of the brain directs circulation, di- 
gestive organs, and regulates all those intri- 
cate movements perpetually occurring in the 
body; of which we are often only first aware 
when they happen to get out of order. 

This busy mind, happily closed to con- 
sciousness, is alert night and day. Like Him 
that keepeth Israel, it neither slumbereth nor 
sleepeth; but works ‘‘unhasting, unresting’’ 
for weal or woe so long as we are alive. 

But it would be useless, unkind, ignorant 
to go to a sufferer and say: ‘‘It is your mind 
that makes you ull.’’ 

That part of the mind of which he is con- 
scious, and which he has been in the habit of 
regarding as the whole of his mind, is com- 
paratively innocent in the matter, and very 
naturally he would indignantly repudiate the 
remark. 

Now it may well be asked: ‘‘If that mind 
to which we must appeal for help and sup- 
port is submerged from consciousness, how 
are we to avail ourselves of its powers?’’ 

Emotion strikes right through the mind, 
both conscious and subconscious, just as a 
shock of dynamite upon the coral island 
might be felt in every corner of the reef, and 


WORDS ON SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 29 


brings forth result, not only in the realm of 
that mind of which we are aware, but to the 
uttermost corners of that submerged mind 
that rules our physical being. This may be 
known to every one who has seen another 
turn pale with fear, blush with self-con- 
sciousness, redden with rage, or turn sick at 
an unpleasant sight or story. 

Anger in the nursing mother may poison 
her babe; and Sir Samuel Baker tells us that 
any severe grief in certain parts of Africa is 
almost sure to be succeeded by fever. 

In fact, though the hidden mind is dumb, 
though it gives no message, makes no sound, 
and can work through the average lifetime 
without letting the consciousness of its pos- 
sessor be aware of its presence, yet it is alive 
to all that goes on, hears all, feels all, and 
is influenced not only by every emotion, but 
by every thought that passes through the 
conscious mind; and unfailingly passes that 
message into the body. 

What hurts? What meets us constantly 
on this life’s journey, hinders, burns, tor- 
ments? 

Hurry. Worry. Depression. Hate. Ran- 
cour. Spite. Self-love. 


30 THE HEALING POWER 


What heals? Is as green pastures and 
running brooks to sun-baked eyes? 

Peace. Content. Good temper. Laughter 
Happiness. Love. 

And if things do worry, people hurt, let as 
stop, think. Think a little of that great tract 
of mind—ours, and only to be reached by 
emotion, by suggestion, by taking thought. 

Comfort it. Comfort it as we would a 
little child. Keep gentle words of love and 
life to repeat inaudibly to it. Drop happy 
thoughts upon it. Let them sink in as the 
gentle rain and dew from Heaven. And so, 
passing through the valley of Baca, we make 
of our own subconscious mind a well. 

For if we remember to comfort this por- 
tion of mind, not only will it cease from feel- 
ing and spreading the ill effects of the harm 
done, but next time worry or hurt reach us, 
it will act as a faithful, though silent, ally. 

Somehow—we cannot realize why—the ill 
we meet has not the same power. We have 
strengthened force within, and, instead of 
its being repelled and frightened at an 
attack, now aware of a reliable friend, it is 
able to play its natural and instinctive part 


WORDS ON SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 31 


of martialling our physical strength to our 
assistance. 

And if part of our mind is subconscious, 
the One Great Mind, the Motive-Power of 
Life, vitalizes all. 

The One Mind, above all, and in all, and 
through all, contains our mind—the part 
that is mercifully hidden from our conscious- 
ness, just as much as that with which we 
commune. ‘‘For it is God which worketh in 
you, both to will and to do His good pleas- 
ure.”’ 

Let Him do His good pleasure. 

His servant, the subconscious mind, does 
not resist His Heavenly will. Let us range 
the conscious mind on the side of the good, 
the true, the beautiful by thinking thoughts 
of truth, peace and beauty. 

‘‘Whatsoever things are pure, whatso- 
ever things are lovely ... if there be any 
virtue, if there be any praise, think on these 
things.’’ 

Think with the conscious mind, strong, 
positive, happy thought. Use the will to dis- 
pel the miserable, the lowering, the un- 
pleasant. 


32 THE HEALING POWER 


Tone the upper portion of the mind, under 
immediate control to the very best at com- 
mand. Keep strong, sustaining thought 
ready at hand with which to nurture and con- 
sole it. So these two sections of the mind, no- 
longer at cross-purposes, but both working 
His good pleasure, will be as one; and not 
only the inmost being, but very soon the out- 
ward life will be set about with blessings,— 
the Heavenly will fulfilled. 


CHAPTER V 
HOW TO GUARD AGAINST HYPNOTISM 


PEoPLE who have not found their refuge 
are much more commonly hypnotized than 
they think. 

Many are hypnotized by some belief, and 
are running to and fro, busily hypnotizing 
themselves and others into the wrong things. 

What is hypnotism? 

The best figure to employ for seeing the 
action of hypnotism is to imagine the motor- 
centres of the human brain as a circle of 
seven lamps, each lamp connected by a cur- 
rent fusing them equally. 

Imagine that through intense concentra- 
tion (say, for instance, upon the motor-centre 
of sight) a power is brought to bear almost 
exclusively upon one lamp, and this power 
has to be withdrawn from the far side of the 
circle, so that another lamp’s light is weak- 
ened, and perhaps expires. So soon as the 
current ceases to circulate and light all seven 

33 


34 THE HEALING POWER 


lamps equally, or that the light from a lamp 
is extinguished to feed another—so soon is 
hypnotism induced. 

An immense rest may thus be produced. 

Many of us push our powers to their ut- 
most. One of the little lamps quenched, a 
load is lifted off ‘‘Brother Ass,’’ as St. 
Francis called the body, that perhaps he 
should not have been called upon to bear. 

The quenching of this lamp, dimming the 
intelligence, leaves the body nothing to cope 
with save the body. Quickly the subconscious 
mind, no longer fearing interference, re- 
stores it. 

But at what cost? 

The current fusing the lamps has been 
broken. It has to be readjusted, and perhaps 
may never again fuse exactly how and where 
it did. And each time of breaking weakens 
the round, steady flow of the current. 

Such is the action of hypnotism in deep 
slumber. But how many of us are concen- 
trating power unduly on some one motor- 
centre? 

Some fear arises. We stare at it spell- 
bound. Think of our seven lamps in con- 
nexion with this concentration, and the power 


GUARD AGAINST HYPNOTISM 35 


brought to bear upon one light, draining 
away from the other side of the circle to feed 
ih 

We take some fad. It may be only clothes, 
or food. Are we pouring an undue concen- 
tration upon it? Because that power of con- 
centration is fetched from something else. 
Is another lamp growing dim, while we feed 
the fad? 

Then there is the power of suggestion we 
exercise, sometimes unwittingly, over one 
another. 

‘‘Look at this splendour of wealth!’’ the 
rich man, driving by in his fine equipage, 
seems to say. Possibly he might prefer to 
walk and get some exercise in his own 
muscles; but the tired man on the pavement 
does not know it. His eyes are caught by the 
dazzle of outward things. ‘‘If only I were 
rich,’’ he thinks, and slides away, hypnotized 
into a land of dreams—his mind unduly con- 
centrated. Out goes some little lamp. Pos- 
sibly the very one that could have lit him to 
his next step. 

‘‘Don’t do that!’’ some woman says to an- 
other. ‘‘Nobody does it.’’ 

Round the circle flashes the power to con- 


36 THE HEALING POWER 


centrate on some vanity of the senses. Bal- 
ance is lost. <A little lamp is quenched. 

Women are so quick. Their fusing power 
rushes round the circle at this or that word. 
But if women are quickly moved, men are 
more stubbornly so. More difficult to lift out 
of a rut, if once they are in one. Impossible 
to make them believe any lamp of theirs is 
quenching. 

This is one of the dangers of hypnotism; 
for the more surely one is hypnotized, either 
by self or others, the less we know it. 

How are we to guard against it? How are 
we to render ourselves immune from a dan- 
ger we may be bringiig on ourselves from 
our own thought and consciousness? 

It is simple—and always the same way 
that leads from gloom, darkness and per- 
plexity into present realization of Everlast- 
ing Light. A Light that is in us and with us 
now; if we would but let it shine. 

‘¢ Awake, thou that sleepest!’’ Don’t drop 
off into an hypnotic doze. Don’t slip away 
into a land of dreams; for the Christ Power 
shall give light. In Him is Life, and this Life 
is the light of men. 

Realize at once that the current fusing our 


GUARD AGAINST HYPNOTISM 37 


little lamps of motor-centres is the One Great 
Current. Let this sane, sound current flow 
freely—by knowing our unity with it. 

Arise, and, in this knowledge, shine; for 
the Light of real reason has come. 

We are not cut off, apart. We are not 
miserable units, fighting the battle of life 
alone. We are not even separate one from 
the other. The poor man, walking on the 
pavement, is walking by exactly the same 
Power, which enables the rich man to sit (and 
very possibly be bored) in his carriage. Why 
is he bored? Because of this Power. It only 
wants one thing, and that is to act. Possibly 
his very riches are chains binding him, and 
the poor man can give it larger scope for 
action. But if either man is less happy than 
the other, it is not material objects for which 
he is craving, it is for the loosening of the 
Power within him. 

‘‘Nobody does it,’’ indeed! Does the inner 
‘‘T’’ ask for this thing to be done? Does the 
Power behind suggest there is life in this 
action? 

If-so, let us do it. If not, refrain. 

What? Are we to bring God Himself into 
little things? 


38 THE HEALING POWER 


Are we His children? Is He the Heavenly 
Father? Is it in Him we live and move and 
have our being? 

Then vivify all acts, little as well as big, 
with the abundant supply of Life and Light 
Kternal, ‘‘Without money and_ without 
price,’’ for it is far above money, above the 
realm of price. Ours for the taking. 


CHAPTER VI 
HEALING BY THE CHECKING OF SIN 


THERE is a healing power in every sinner. 

It is the power by which he sins. 

Don’t think we are sinning on our own 
life-energy. 

Free-will may have turned the life-power 
in the wrong direction. If so, we are for- 
tunate if we still retain enough hold on the 
reins to draw up and stop when we choose. 
The wild steed of carnal desire may have 
the bit between his teeth, and our whole 
manhood must be exerted in deathly struggle 
before we can arrest and dismiss him. 

If Life—the one and only Life—were not 
flowing through us, we should never have had 
the strength to mount that steed and go 
away upon his back. We knew-that when we 
began to sin; one kind of sinner is always 
calling out that he wants to see life. 

‘‘Behold, we have set before you this day 
life and death, blessing and cursing.... 

39 


40 THE HEALING POWER 


Choose Life that you and your seed may 
live.’’ 

If we are sniggling through life, neither 
saint nor sinner, these words may not mean 
much. But the more we are steeped in sin, 
the more frightfully home these words will 
strike us. If not now—then only to do so 
with yet more force a little time hereafter. 

Sin carries its own narcotic. ‘‘The wages 
of sin is death.’’ 

The dead man does not know he is dead. 
He would not be dead if he did know. 

What in us is dying? What may soon be 
dead? 

Why, the very Power we spoke of first, the 
life force by whose power alone we had 
strength to tread that path. 

Are we free to leave it? If so, the Power 
of Life, alive in us, is still allied to the 
smaller self. 

Are we fettered, bound, chained? 

Are our tastes stronger than we are? 

Then our inner ‘‘I’’ is a miserable, pale, 
sickly prisoner. 

We alone can free it. And yet these words 
should be unwritten. Alone we cannot do it. 
But through our own self go back and 


HEALING BY CHECKING OF SIN 41 


deeply down, find once more the child we 
were, still alive in us. Ally it to the One Life 
Power. The uprush of Life Eternal is there. 
Every time we use it to withstand old habits, 
temptations, we are forging Living Power in 
the self. Itis like bearing pain—it is pain to 
put the thing from us. Employ Power to 
bear that pain; the pain will pass, the Power 
remain. 

There are men with calm eyes, quiet 
voices, who can say steadily: ‘‘I was a great 
sinner.’’ They know the inward strength. 

Oh! Power of Life misled, misdirected! 

Don’t think the temptation bigger than 
another man’s. It was not. That is only 
to call oneself more feeble than others. 
Don’t upbraid those who went before and 
call it hereditary weakness. That again is 
not only to slander a great race of forbears, 
but to decry our own self, the one within who 
is ‘‘I,’’—the eternal tie with the All-Father. 

But rather here and now prove the God- 
given Power of Life to be surging more 
strongly than through many of our fellow- 
men. 

Choose Life. Live Life. The strong, in- 
ward Life—not the mere grasping of outward 


42 THE HEALING POWER 


apples that glitter to the senses. Despisc 
them. We, who are so much greater than 
they. 

-Know our own foree. Take it from the 
One Source. Use it, and thus earn its 
strength. Power will well up and surge. 
Power of Life, not death; of active blessing, 
not negative cursing. 

Do we want to be strong? 

Be strong. 

Yes, and this to the bold sinner. And how 
about those who walk, or even sidle, respect- 
ably along and nourish many a secret little 
snake, gnawing vitals to bodily destruction? 

Such as have friends among the Quakers, 
know that these spiritually-minded people do 
not work directly for the healing of the body. 
They would rather heal the spirit. They 
would repulse sinful, hurtful, unkind thought, 
not for the betterment of their bodies, but 
for the good of the soul. Nevertheless, this 
raising of the spiritual self has an undoubted 
physical effect, perhaps the more certain be- 
cause unselfishly sought. An effect that tells 
not only on the body, but on the environment 
of the life. 

When Our Lord in healing said: ‘‘Thy 


HEALING BY CHECKING OF SIN 48 


sins are forgiven thee’’; such a loosening of 
chains, such a lifting of the burden occurred, 
such a rush of Life through mind and heart, 
that the very desire to sin was wiped away, 
and the Life-Power gladly rushed into all 
those channels that lead inevitably to health, 
joy, contentment and achievement. 

What does it hurt to think? 

Of that man we cannot forgive. He did a 
bad, mean thing years ago, and we have 
been doing a bad, mean thing ever since in 
nourishing remembrance of it. 

And how about that little habit of back- 
biting, of repeatings things, that way of see- 
ing the worst instead of seeing the best? 

Take our bad thoughts and place them in 
a mental scale, and put our bodily ills in the 
other. 

If we can weigh them fairly, we are not far 
from the Kingdom of God. 

But we may be hypnotized by self-pity? 
The most decimating of all hypnotic beliefs! 

If we are, we are quite incapable of using 
any mental weighing machine. Self-pity will 
pull the scale down to the ground and hold it 
there, though the very Love of God may be 
heaping the other scale with blessings. 


44 THE HEALING POWER 


Pity whomsoever we like, and there is gen- 
erally a grain of contempt in pity. But as we 
honour the Life-Power, the One making and 
re-making us, at every moment—don’t pity 
the channel He has chosen in choosing our- 
selves. 

Are we down? Then fear no fall, and start 
building on that sure and safe foundation. 

Is there a pick and shovel in the land? Is 
there a broom and a corner to be swept? 
Then up and do it! Don’t stand about with 
empty hands pitying the self. We shall pity 
it into nothing but hopeless, helpless misery, 
perhaps into sin. 

Pity that poor man coming down the street 
and give hima smile. Already we are givers, 
—hbread-givers. We have taken our stand 
among Nature’s nobility, thos2 natural 
leaders of men, upon whom other men and 
women and little children lean. 

Ah! That glorious Noblesse oblige. To 
find oneself a Bread-giver* by necessity. So 
full of the living Spirit of God that it must 
overflow. The poor and necessitous, even 
among the rich, recognize it and come to us 


1The word lady comes from a Saxon root, meaning the 
Bread-giver. 


HEALING BY CHECKING OF SIN 45 


for it. Hungry hands pull at our skirts. 
Hungry eyes look to our eyes. And we have 
the grain, Heavenly grain, to give in large 
measure; yes, pressed down and overflowing. 
Seek bravely the sin that may be impair- 
ing the general constitution. That is where 
our power lies. Not only those sins of the 
flesh, that—mercifully—bring their own 1m- 
mediate scourge, but small sins of the char- 
acter, have their effect upon the general 
health. A mean, grasping nature does not 
make for strength. Resentment nourished 
may undermine a constitution. All who 
suffer from jealousy know what a devastat- 
ing force it is; force wasted, wrongly di- 
rected. Habitual deceit will doubtless have 
its effect upon the body of the wretched soul 
who practises it. Yet, we may justly object, 
the wicked do flourish like the green bay tree. 
Perhaps a peculiarly hard and stubborn kind 
of body and soul may seem to stand un- 
harmed, in spite of insidious enemy within. 
But some negative quality, some stop in his 
own character, will prevent such a man reach- 
ing even his higher physical possibilities. 
Reverse the shield: The frank, open- 
hearted man doubles his chances in a fight 


46 THE HEALING POWER 


for life. The gentle-minded, happy-hearted 
woman, pursuing an even tenor of way, is 
likely to be richly blessed with health. While 
a striving after excitement, an altering of the 
pace of life—one of the evils of the present 
day—is bound to reap the harvest that its 
owner has sown. 

The pace of life! Itis a thing to study. 
Let us not live in spurts and bounds, but set 
the pace quietly at the opening of the day, 
at the opening of life. Live like the stars, 
‘‘Unhasting, unresting.’’ And when the fret, 
the stir, the peevish excitement unsettles and 
disturbs with a sense that we must be hurry- 
ing to some unknown goal, rest, ‘‘Rest in the 
Lord, wait patiently on Him,’’ and as we 
give the soul time to achieve, to come all the 
way, to develop and possess itself in peace, 
He will give us largely. Yes, even as it is 
written, ‘‘Your heart’s desire.’’ 


CHAPTER VII 
HELP IN PAIN 


Positive and imperious minds do much for 
the health of the body by denying pain. We 
all know the boy who treats scratches care- 
lessly. 

‘“Tt’s nothing,’’ he says, and, resenting the 
stinging smart, thrusts them out of sight, 
and as far as possible out of mind. 

There is the woman who is ‘‘too busy to be 
ul’’; and the man who considers a sneezing 
fit a personal insult, and says he never has 
a cold. 

All these people thrust weakness from 
them by fierce and instinctive denial that ill 
should have any power over them, and thus 
assist the stronger forces in their own frames 
to oust the enemy. 

Gentle natures, even when suffering from 
little ills, are more likely to find relief in the 
power of assertion than in denial. And to 
strong and weak alike in moments of over- 

47 


48 THE HEALING POWER 


whelming agony, when waters of trouble 
close overhead, denial (a merely negative 
thing) is useless; while steadfast assertion 
brings relief and comfort. 

At such moments it is sometimes difficult 
to concentrate the thought. Strong, simple 
statements are needed. A few are given 
here in the first person, so that one can apply 
them silently. 

Pause over each sentence. Let it sink 
quietly and fully into the consciousness, into 
the body. Ponder them in the heart. Hold 
each separate thought firmly before passing 
to the next.* 

IT have a pain. I accept and locate it. 

Then, setting in as far on one side as it 
will let me, I concentrate my thought upon 
my healer, Life or Love. 

If Life—I know that life is a force, a gift, 
alien from me, yet intimately bound up in me, 
I know that it is here and now strong within 
me—stronger than this gnawing pain. 

I bring my being up, away from the pain, 
into my Spirit, where my life, the gift of 
God, is surging. 

1In the case of assisting others, either by thought or 


the spoken word, change the pronoun into ‘‘you’’ or ‘‘he 
and she.’’ 


HELP IN PAIN 49 


Steadily I repeat and know that in Him I 
live, I move and have all my being. 

I know that as I consciously bring myself 
thus in contact with Him, He pours vigour 
and healing through His Channel, life, into 
me, His Child. 

If Love be my healer, I lie quiescent, wait- 
ing, knowing that in my own nerves and 
veins, all around the odious pain, where as 
yet it is not penetrating, Love lies ready and 
willing to lay a healing touch. I am the 
Child of God, and God is Love. My agony is 
not me. It is alien to me. But the very 
essence of my existence holds, contains and 
is love. Istateit. Laffirmit strongly. I feel 
it. It has passed from my head into my 
heart, into my organs and my limbs. The 
darkness around me teems with Love. I lean 
my aching heart upon the Knowledge of that 
Love, and slowly, but very certainly, my 
Heavenly Father fills me with divine glow, 
helps and heals me with this force. 

The pain may not be physical, but mental. 
Apply these healing thoughts in just the same 
way. 

We are lonely? We are afraid of the 
people we meet? They seem to look askance 


50 THE HEALING POWER 


at us, for we are poor and sad; and, like the 
Levite in the parable, they pass by on the 
other side? 

Do not wait for a good Samaritan. Be one. 
Among those very Levites are sore hearts 
and unrealized desires. They are lonely; but 
we are not, for we are realizing the everlast- 
ing Presence of God’s own forces around and 
in us. We are strong and happy, abiding in 
the knowledge that deep within ourselves is a 
quiet source, life of our life, drawing vitality 
from Him, Who is ‘‘One, because He is All.”’ 

The Divine within the breast is aching for 
recognition, for love from those others who, 
like ourselves, are reflecting the only Power; 
because this wish is not satisfied, we believe 
ourselves to be alone. 

Go out to them. If we meet rebuff, pity the 
self-deluding heart that gives it. But we will 
not meet rebuff. As surely and silently as 
water finds its own level, so surely will the 
Divine in us have rest and satisfaction, where 
it finds its own in others. 

And here we find the key of life. This is 
life. Living is loving. Loving is living. 
Otherwise we see men as trees walking. 


HELP IN PAIN 51 


Otherwise we exist. We draw empty air, not 
teeming life, with every breath. 

Minutes of concentration lift the spirit into 
its own plane, giving it space and peace to 
do healing work. This effort helps, too, for 
the other hourly practice of guarding the 
mind from hurtful thought. 

There are two wolves constantly attacking 
our physical frames; and instead of recogniz- 
ing the enemy, we make pets of these beasts, 
cherish and feed them carefully. They are 
Worry and Fear. 

So long as these insidious creatures are 
one’s constant companions, it will be im- 
possible to attain highest possibilities. And 
this does not mean casting away caution. 
Far from it. The Spirit within is infinitely 
wise. If given freedom to live and express 
itself, it will warn and advise; but if Fear 
and Worry sit on the heart the Spirit will re- 
treat to some quiet, inner place, waiting to be 
summoned to assist in their dismissal. 

Thought can only be driven out by thought. 
If bad, hurtful thought molest, think—and 
think hard—something else. 

Keep a positive assertion in a corner of the 


52 THE HEALING POWER 


mind, and, when either of these evils attack 
us, drive them out and defeat them by strong, 
uplifting thought. 

Say, ‘‘The Spirit of God hath made me,”’ 
or, if another is giving anxiety, ‘‘hath made 
him.’’ This spirit can walk through fire un- 
harmed, and so can we and our beloved. 

Let us know it. 

It is our own thought that gives the evil 
power to molest us. Walk through its midst; 
—yea, even through the Valley of the Shadow 
of Death with the Staff of Life Eternal in 
hand, and these conditions, transient in their — 
very nature, will pass, and we shall find our 
true self presently on the sunny slopes of the 
pastures of God. 

Is there a lion in the path? Shall we turn 
tail, show fear? Or advance boldly, and let 
him do the slinking aside? 

Fine talk indeed until the lion is actually 
there, and what then? 

Attack in one’s own small strength? No. 
The forces we are calling upon are stronger 
than any lion’s. So soon as we begin to use 
them, we shall know as an actual spiritual 
fact that Daniel walked, unharmed, in the 
hon’s den. 


HELP IN PAIN 53 


There is only one way of proving it—by 
deeds, not words. 

One may say certain things. Another 
accept or refute them. The proof alone can 
be in the doing. That no one can do except 
our own self. 

We are doing work, perhaps, or our exist- 
ence seems fixed in some sphere that we dis- 
like? It does not give scope? It is daily 
drudgery, even misery to us? 

Lift up the heart! Know that what is in us 
is strong, lasting, eternal in us with the 
strength and eternity of Him who made it. 
Do not chafe because we do not see the out- 
come, the product, the appreciation of others 
at our gift. Know that it is there, deathless 
within us, and the outward circumstance will 
seem a slighter thing. 

And in holding that thought, the power 
inside us, that perhaps we believe is being 
starved, will strengthen and grow. It will no 
longer be chafed by external nerves working 
in the wrong direction. The well within us 
now has power to renew itself at the spring 
of eternal life, and surely, though perhaps 
slowly, we shall come into our own. 

Then there are those who cry: ‘‘ Everything 


54 'PHE HEALING POWER 


comes to me when I cease to care about 
iy 

Why have we ceased to care? We have 
not really. It is a way of cheating the self 
into believing that the frail and ephemeral 
pleasure we take in matters upon which we 
set our young heart is not all we expected it 
to be. No, and it would not have been so had 
we received it ten, twenty years sooner. The 
mere passing of years, the alteration of 
seasons, make no impression upon our essen- 
tial selves. At eighty we do not feel very 
differently to what we did at eight. We may 
put on different modes of expression as we 
certainly have put on different clothes. That 
inward ‘‘T’’ may have changed in its choice 
of toys; but in its essential essence we know 
in our hearts that it is the same. 

And this is a fresh glory, a new assurance 
of the immortal within us. 


CHAPTER VIII 
POWER IN FORGIVENESS 
[A TALK BETWEEN THE TWO INNER SELVES | 


I can’r forgive. Don’t ask me to forgive. 
No. That is beyond my power. 

Your power indeed! Are you working 
again on your own power? Have you tapped 
the God-Power? Have you tried Power at 
its Source and found out what it can do? 

J don’t want to tap the Source for that pur- 
pose. I prefer not to forgive. 

That at least is honest; but you’ve shut a 
door, slammed it in your own face. 

Very well, I’ve slammed it. 

So you don’t pray: ‘‘Forgive me my tres- 
passes, as I forgive them that trespass 
against me’’? 

That’s all right. Of course God forgives. 
He understands everything. 

But you are too small to understand? 

55 


56 THE HEALING POWER 


I may be small; but I won’t stoop to their 
smallness. Mean, sly, backstairs’ ways. For- 
give them? No, I’d send them rather to the 
place... 

Stop! Can you put them in that place? 

No, I can’t; but I’d like... 

At least you are open. You don’t pretend. 

Oh! I’m generally open. 

Stop again! You are not open to forgive- 
ness. 

I don’t know about that. I often feel as if 
God had wiped out a lot of my silliness. And 
I forgive pretty readily too. A lot of things 
don’t touch me now. I’ve got into a bigger 
place. 

But you can’t feel big about... you 
know what? 

No, I can’t. Though it’s true I could wipe 
out the past and say it’s gone. But it always 
comes up again and always the same people. 
Have I forgiven? Yes, unto seventy times 
seven. And then it happens all over again. 

I don’t believe you have really forgiven. 
You have smeared over the top. The fire is 
smouldering beneath all the time. What a 
waste of force! Fire that might be used for 
larger purposes. 


POWER IN FORGIVENESS 57 


I’m human. This is the place I’m in, and 
here I’ll stop. 

All right. But if you hold rancour in your 
spirit, don’t be surprised if it gets into your 
body. 

Then I’ll just bear it, if it hurts my body: 
like I’m bearing this. 

Then you are bearing it? It hurts you? 

Like Hell. 

Then you’ve gone into the place you say 
you are wishing for? ... 

Seems like it. We’re an awful queer lot, 
we human people. Everything’s upside 
down. Yes, that’s the truth. I’ve come a 
long way; but there’s one range of thoughts 
that still lights hell-fire all round me. For- 
get it? I only wish I could forget! 

Don’t forget. Forgive. 

I don’t know what the word means. I’d 
like to forgive. It’s a fine, big thing to do. 
But I don’t know how to set about it. 

Let us think about taking forgiveness. We 
feel as if circumstances and motives, . half- 
hidden, had pushed us into actions which we 
despise and hate having done. But the 
Supreme Life-Power sees all, knows all. He 
forgives. Then too He is so much bigger 


58 THE HEALING POWER 


than we. We may look shocked when the 
children steal the gooseberries; but we aren’t 
really. And yet we are. 

We are awfully hurt that just our own chil- 
dren should have done something mean and 
underhand. But we believe that their own 
bigger selves are hurt too. That something 
in them is mortified. Some bigger self, who 
would never stoop to that little act. In our 
inward vision we tear away the little, mean 
person, who did the act, from the Larger 
Self, who is their essential reality. 

But at least we tell the children they have 
done wrong, you say? We appeal to the 
better one inside each child? 

And is there not a better one inside those 
who injure us? And has not each one a 
Heavenly Father, communing in his own 
breast? Can we not trust Him to tell them 
in His own good time? 


Nor in thy folly say, I am alone, 
For seated in thy breast, as on a throne, 
The Ancient Judge and Witness liveth still. 


When we sorrow over the mean deeds done 
against us, when we grieve that the offenders 
are offending against the Holy One in their 


POWER IN FORGIVENESS 59 


own breasts—as with our children—we are 
on the road towards forgiving them. 

With the children we are helped because we 
don’t mind that the gooseberries are taken. 
We can do without them. We only mind that 
the little ones sinned against their own better 
selves. 

But if we were furious about the goose- 
berries? ... 

Are we furious about the gooseberries? 

Then, too, there is the Mother-love forgive- 
ness. 

When mother comes round with her candle 
at night and finds her boy breathing evenly, 
his crisp, gold curls on the pillow, the round 
cheek rosy and soft—she remembers how he 
hurt her by those sharp, rude words at his 
midday dinner. But she thinks of the long 
road before her little boy. How far he must 
travel! The soft cheek will harden, the 
golden curls some day be white; and her heart 
rushes out in a flood over her boy. She 
doesn’t want him to remember, in the days 
when the hard path of life will bring him to 
a place of understanding, that he hurt his 
mother that day. And he won’t remember. 
The long way he will travel will put too many 


60 THE HEALING POWER 


pictures in his mind for this little one to rise 
again. By the time he is big enough to see it 
he will have gone so far. 

If we could remember all our sins, the load 
would be so awful we could never stagger 
farther. No, no, she would never have him 
remember! How happy she is! Bending 
over and enveloping her little son in the 
strong, embracing thoughts of everlasting 
Love. 

There is Power in her Forgiveness. It has 
the life force of fire. It is penetrating, flood- 
ing Love, reaching her boy as well as trans- — 
forming her. 

The hell-fire burns outside and around us. 

The Love-fire streams through our very 
being. 

The Love-fire is the very Heart of the One 
I AM. This is sharing the Mind which was 
also in Christ Jesus. This is the Power by 
which He stayed in the bosom of the Father, 
yet stooped into the very understanding of 
the sinner. This made both His manhood 
and His Godhead—this one continuous, un- 
broken stream of the very Love of the Living 
God. 

Can we taste this stream of Love, drink of 


POWER IN FORGIVENESS 61 


this Living Water, unless we ourselves make 
of our very bodies a channel for It? 

‘‘Horgive us our trespasses, as we forgive 
them that trespass against us.’’ Yes, this 
last clause makes us active participators in 
the very Love of God. 

Even the Christ upon the Cross linked 
Himself with this glorious Power. 

Could He rise again unless by the strength 
and might of every Power invisible? 

He opened His Heart to this Heavenly 
Flood. ‘‘Father, forgive them! They know 
not what they do.’’ His outstretched arms 
poured Forgiveness from the Great Heart of 
All, the Heart that throbs and gives life, not 
only from above, but in and through each one 
of us. 

This act of giving forgiveness makes us 
one with the Heavenly Father. 

We sit beneath as separate atoms and take 
forgiveness of our own sins at His hands; but 
we have to open our hearts to His very Heart, 
and let that Heart beat within us before we 
can forgive. 

Are we one with the Father? 

If we are still wandering—Forgive and ‘be 


One. 


CHAPTER IX 
THE SECOND SELF 


THERE is a self behind the self. Calm and 
collected, it looks on at all that happens, while 
the busy little top self is giving way to fuss, 
flurry and emotion. 

Sometimes children find the way to this 
place within themselves but often lose it 
again when sense of responsibility is added 
with advancing years. 

Calamity or deep sorrow may lead us back 
to an abiding quietude within. It is not that 
nothing matters now the worst has happened, 
as on-lookers may be disposed to think; it is 
that far within is a well of life; but we have 
to let go of outward sustenance, of the things 
at which we clutch, know them to be frail and 
perishable, changing and breaking, by their 
very nature, before we can find the inward 
source of an unending existence, not only in 
us but in our dear ones. 

62 


THE SECOND SELF 63 


Sometimes people live together for years, 
glimpsing little more than each other’s out- 
side. The one who really dwells within they 
do not know, not in son, father, brother, nor, 
yet more strange, even in themselves. 

Men who take their lives in their hands, 
face extremities, hourly dangers, above all 
if these dangers be out in God’s wilds, un- 
consciously acquire some quiet strength that 
is drawn from their own depths. These are 
men that it makes for happiness to meet and 
that every little child instinctively trusts. 
They are gentle and tender, rarely disquieted, 
never fussing, entering into the real and en- 
joying a true sense of balancing humour. 

We need not go to the back woods nor face 
death daily to acquire this quiet strength. It 
is possible to have it just where we are—to 
have it and be it. 

Too often it is believed that one’s own 
particular trouble—more trying of course 
than other people’s—completely bars the 
way. If any think so, let them know a 
blinded soldier; be with the strong fellow 
when one dares not put out a hand to help 
him in his helplessness for fear of increasing 
his resentment that this degrading infirmity 


64 THE HEALING POWER 


has happened to him. Wounded, he will crash 
into a wall rather than let another hand guide 
him past it. Maddened, a giant in prison, he 
feels the black walls close relentlessly round 
him. Down and down into deeper depths, yet 
further into himself he goes, until he finds the 
quiet waters of the well of life bubbling up in- 
side him. Here is his strength, his constant 
comrade, his power to help others, even if he 
has first to help them by letting them help 
him. Presently God’s own sunshine plays 
upon his face, not from without but from 
within. Then his neighbours seek him, not 
to cheer and lift, but to be cheered and lifted. 

Still there is always the case of Pity the 
Poor Blind Man. Pity the poor blind man 
with eyes that know not how to see and ears 
that hear not a whisper of life’s true glad- 
ness. These blind are constantly about him, 
though the blind man ean see. 

Thousands of living people are waiting till 
they are dead to be happy, if we believe the 
hymns they piously proclaim. 

Yet the kingdom of God, to which they are 
looking, is within. 

Smile and smile now! Be kind and be kind 
this minute. It is the smile that we do not 


THE SECOND SELF 65 


feel inclined to smile, the cheer behind the 
cheer that carries all before it. It is the love 
behind the love, ours to give and win back 
from all, over the counter, in the workshop, 
the street, the committee-room, the club. 
Ours to be the serene, ever-reigning second 
self. | 

What sight more pathetic than the decking 
out of the little ageing top-self in the clothes 
of youth, putting on paint, powder, artificial 
aids? And yet how everlasting the belief 
prompting these silly acts that the self has 
not changed and though hair and teeth are 
failing, life has not? Others, accepting the 
change of outward appearance, are yet so 
full of this internal life that they do not seem 
to age. 

Bliicher, springing to the saddle in the 
sixties, was called the Silver Youth. Such 
silver youths are known in most families. 
They add the charm, vivacity, spring of life to 
the dignity, purpose and added weight of 
their years. This vitality is of the spirit, 
shining irresistibly, even though years show 
their traces on the lantern containing the 
light—often delaying decay by the force of 
this inward life. The step springs. Serenity 


66 THE HEALING POWER 


and health smooth out wrinkles. The truth 
of age, unconcealed, adds its own power and 
fascination. Sincerity and sympathy flow 
from such people, who are the friends of all. 
What age are they? It does not matter. 
They have gone into the place where it does 
not count. Every one feels as they talk to 
them—even little children and very old men 
—as if they were their own age. 

‘“‘The gods are free from decrepitude,”’ 
chants one of the oldest songs in the world. 

There is a youth behind youth. It is the 
you behind the you. The I behind the I. The 
Self behind the self. 

Our existence is dual. Hach one of us hears 
the clamouring call of matter to matter, and 
can know the everlasting stillness of Spirit. 
We have to decide in which we will abide and 
dwell. 

It is not necessary to deny the material of 
which we are made nor the lawful happiness 
it gives us; but rather to increase that happi- 
ness by looking through the perishable form 
in which it is presented to the internal spirit, 
which alone creates, not only that external 
thing but in us the power of knowing and ap- 
preciating it. 


THE SECOND SELF 67 


“‘T pervade all things. On Me the universe 
is strung as gems upon a string.’’ 

Strangely delightful is this way of han- 
dling life. It does not mean cutting down, 
forbidding, but always calls to action—to 
beautiful and fastidious expression, rather 
than to blunt and dour expulsion. 

Repression of painful emotion nearly al- 
ways leads to physical disease. We need not 
repress but banish the pain with flow of life. 

If the pain be physical, do not waste time 
denying it; but assert that the very force, 
making one capable of feeling pain, can re- 
arrange molecules, destroy destructive ani- 
malcule and above all fill with so strong a 
sweep of life that ill must go out before it. 

If resentment and anger attack mind and 
body, lift the self into so large a place, take 
such kingly attitude, that the lesser acts of 
others fail to have dominion. Even if result 
is left upon the environment of life, this too 
must finally yield to the uprush of internal 
power. Some larger thing, as yet undreamt, 
may be obtained that would have been im- 
possible but for that very obstruction. If 
doors close, others beyond may open to wider 


68 THE HEALING POWER 


views and fairer prospects, so long as life- 
power within compels to right action. 

If separation from those we love, agony 
possibly at their foolish acts comes upon us, 
do not deny and repress that natural anguish. 
Crucifix nails pierce sharply, cruelly; yet 
resurrection must prevail. Waves of sorrow 
sweep the system, bitter is the cup, but in its 
dregs lurks sweetness. O strange sweet 
Power immovably fixed in the beloved! No 
harm can everlastingly slay or stain. Silence 
may fall between, but deeply through the 
silence the still voice of everlasting Love 
penetrates, perhaps more surely for the 
stilling of clamourous chatter. Those whom 
God hath joined together nothing can put 
asunder. 

In all difficulties, trials, dilemmas, feel the 
self larger not smaller, strong to bear, long- 
thinking to forbear. If strokes must be laid, 
let all feel one would not hesitate to lay them 
on oneself, 

If life harrows, bring laughter and sun- 
shine from the inner self to gladden and 
hearten the way. The very gates of Hell can- 
not prevail against the inner sunlight. Be 
more not less. Find those who need loving- 


THE SECOND SELF 69 


kindness, shower it on them, feel the glow of 
God’s own love coursing through the system. 
Do not look for gratitude, but feel the activity 
of the power of giving flowing through one- 
self. If return comes, take it as a glad sur- 
prise, a gift, never as something to be ex- 
pected, for it is far harder to receive 
graciously than to give. 

Faced with a hungering multitude Our 
Lord did not send for further supplies, but 
took the lowly food that was offered. Five 
barley loaves and two small fishes sufficed. 
He took them and blessed them and brake 
them. If we did this with the circumstances, 
friends, ties, joys that lie around us, speedily 
our strength would be taxed to cope with all 
that multiplied into our lives. 

If evil suggestion were as strong as good, 
we should soon knock ourselves to pieces. If, 
for instance, every unkind thought meant a 
headache. But ‘‘stronger is He that is in 
us than he that is of the world.’”’ A little 
turning to the good, an endeavour, a will in 
the purposeful direction rights the helm and 
the ship obeys, rides over the waves, instead 
of lolloping in the trough. 

Strong sane thoughts should be kept at 


70 © THE HEALING POWER 


hand to pour through the mind into the body. 
Repetition need not be dreaded. Our nerves 
and cells love familiar repetition just as chil- 
dren do. Know oneself man and master,— 
sweeter still, woman and mistress, one with 
the divine will and life, here to express love 
and laughter, strength and help. 

Fresh birth thus arises out of the dark 
miasma of bewildered, hurt, aching thought. 
Pain is but an incentive to achievement. We 
can turn, even on to one who injures, the blaz- 
ing light of God’s own sunshine. We can get 
into the place of the one who is looking on, 
and slip into the self behind the self, as a 
runner gains his second wind. 

We can be Life Everlasting at this moment, 
sense its scintillating power, feel the glory 
and share the shout of triumph of the ancient 
Egyptian: 

‘‘T am the possessor of the Second Life for- 
ever !’’ 


CHAPTER X 
DAILY SPIRITUAL EXERCISES 


THERE are two moments in every life, even 
the most busy, teeming with healing to those 
who look to the power of Spirit to overcome 
ills of this world. 

The first, when the conscious mind takes 
up work in the morning; and the second—the 
most healing of all—before it lays aside 
thought for the night. 

The Temple of the body will soon be closing 
its door. The door-keeper, the conscious 
mind, will be off duty during long, quiet 
hours. Let him, as he is an honest fellow, see 
to it that all is well before closing down for 
the night. Let no phantoms of anxiety and 
sorrow go wandering the night long through 
the corridors. Let no burglar of bitterness 
and hate be hidden away to break forth and 
steal the treasures of love and peace from the 
Safe Place. 

71 


72 THE HEALING POWER 


When all is quiet, let him commit his charge 
in confidence to One who slumbereth not. 

The Love of God is your safeguard. 
Commit yourself and those dear to you to 
the Father’s care. Fall asleep in the shelter 
of His arms, and during the whole night 
Forces of Life and Love will pass through the 
unconscious frame. 

Let the morning return to consciousness be 
strong, bright and happy. Have some cheer- 
ful, positive thought ready at the pillow for 
the best self to lay hold of the moment it be- 
gins to stir. . 

As soon as we break through the heavy 
clouds of sleep, let the conscious mind, like 
the rising sun, send rays of joyous activity 
through our body, through our environment. 
Dispel the clouds with positive, joyous life. 
Let morning prayer be praise. Praise Him 
from Whom all blessings flow! Lift up the 
heart. Yes, lift it up! Don’t let the fellow 
be a lag-a-bed. Lift it up to the Lord of 
Power and Might. Glory be to God on High! 
Can we feel the true self rising? Bigger and 
greater with each day’s awakening? More 
sure of the self? More positive, shining right 
out from our own centre with a Light that 


DAILY SPIRITUAL EXERCISES 73 


burns steadily? Arise, shine, for the Light 
has come! | 

We should bless our work, our home, our 
business, or the place where our activities lie. 
Every man and woman has an active, positive 
power of blessing. Use it. Begin in doubt, 
if we must; soon we shall find that ruts 
smooth away, obstacles do not rise, and that 
there is greater power in oneself to act lov- 
ingly, largely and to deal rightly with the 
daily friction one is bound to meet. 

When annoyances rise, if difficult paths 
have to be chosen, ally the self quickly and 
silently with the One Who knows. 

And the change will be in our own self. 

That’s where we want it to be. We shall 
be big enough, strong enough, quiet enough 
to meet every emergency that life may thrust 
upon us. 

At least once a day (it is well to do this 
on first leaving the house) empty the body en- 
tirely of all breath. Nature, who abhors 
vacuum, fills us quickly, and sweeps all the 
corners of the lungs with her fresh, disinfect- 
ing broom. 

If, as we refill, we take in with the air some 
strong, inspiring thought, the very limbs will 


74 THE HEALING POWER 


respond and reply with renewed vigour. 
Why creep on the earth when we can mount 
with wings, aye, with the wings of the young 
eagle? Why rely on the mere play of earthly 
joints and muscles when we can be filled with 
heavenly fire? 

It is the practice of these simple things 
that make perfect, yes, even the perfect man, 
made in the image and likeness—not of dead 
dust—but of the Living God. 

Here is a plain breathing exercise: Draw — 
breath steadily through both nostrils, filling 
the lungs, counting mentally and slowly. 

Hold the breath in the lungs, counting 
again slowly to the self-same number. Ex- 
hale steadily, again counting and keeping the 
rhythm by emptying the chest on the same 
number. 

The rhythm is of greater importance than 
long duration of breath. In preserving this, 
we follow the great spiritual law: 

Receive. 

Hold. 

Give. 

A trinity that should be of equal parts in 
all things in the life of a just man. 


DAILY SPIRITUAL EXERCISES 75 


A strong thought can be entertained 
throughout the exercise. Such as: 


I inhale the Love that is All. 
I hold the Love that is All. 
I pour forth the Love that is All. 


Or any other force that may meet the needs 
of the moment. 

In the train or on a journey, it is well to 
say inwardly: ‘‘Love prepares the place to 
which I go.’? 

Let us send thought out before us like good 
angels to prepare happiness and peace and 
welcome. 

Let us take positive good to those we meet, 
knowing that men will be gentler, women 
the stronger and little children the gladder 
for our stay. This is not conceit; for all the 
time we know well it is never done in our own 
strength, but by the strange, sweet power re- 
tained within us by the complete betterment 
and daily renewing of what we used so 
foolishly to consider our own strength, before 
we knew its source. 

Before an important interview send an 


76 THE HEALING POWER 


active thought of good-will to the one we are 
going to see. 

Life of the Spirit deepens and sweetens 
the more we lay hold upon it. Fresh mean- 
ings and interests arise on all sides. A dif- 
ferent poise in oneself will make things and 
people seem to take on a new aspect. 

Let us take, if we can, a few moments’ re- 
laxation some time during the day, perhaps 
before the evening meal. 

Place the body in a chair or couch that com- 
pletely supports it. Tell arms, legs, fingers, 
ankles to relax fully. Loosen and ease the 
neck. Bid sensation cease and repose take its 
place. Bid thought withdraw from the brain. 
Rests a eesti ti eee ee ts aaa Me 

Open the self to the soothing divine current 
of peace, slowly passing from the very depth 
of our being. An even stream flows through 
the breast from the pure river of the water of 
life. No light is needed now, no candle in 
this quiet place; for the Lord God giveth 
light, even in the dark places. Close the eyes 
of the senses that the eyes of the mind may 
see more clearly. Soon the inner ear shall 
hear the still, warm invitation of the Spirit, 
saying to the weary: ‘‘Come.”’ 


DAILY SPIRITUAL EXERCISES 77 


_“T cannot close these pages without a plea 
for the little ones. 

Mothers! Yours is the most blessed 
privilege on earth. To guard and guide those 
little lives, those little hearts right into the 
fold of the Heavenly love. 

Are you leaving your little lambs out at 
night, wandering away with their own sad, 
little, bitter thoughts to far hillsides, where 
wolves are ravaging, and there is no soft 
place for little heads? When the rustle of 
your dress on the stairs can mean so much, 
the voice that can ring far down the ages, 
until your babies are worn men and old 
women, the voice that the little lambs love and 
follow gladly, leading to the one fold, to their 
tender Shepherd. 

‘‘Heed my lambs.’’ These were the last 
words of the Holy One when He walked the 
earth. All those who practice these truths 
will find themselves doing it. Forces of Life 
and Love flowing through us will find their 
natural outlet. This is the highest and best, 
the most strengthening of all spiritual exer- 
cises. Are we hungering? Feed another. 
Are we parched for the want of drops of liv- 
ing water? Hold the cup to the lips of a 


78 THE HEALING POWER 


thirsty one. Not only are we comforting that 
One, Who said: ‘‘Inasmuch as ye do it unto 
the least ...’’ but we are sustaining the 
Holy One, Who dwells within each breast. 
Fill the self largely with the love of God, and 
His lambs will be fed. 


CHAPTER XI 
THE ROAD TO ACHIEVEMENT 


Do not doubt the power of God within to 
heal. Do not starve this power of God, nor 
fall away from the best inheritance through 
heedlessness or sloth. 

Do not expect miraculous cures on first 
turning attention to these thoughts. 

The building of the spirit is slow, laborious. 
We must work from within on our own 
spiritual basis, and if at first the body needs 
external aid, take old Mother Earth’s natural 
remedies. Pills and powders need not be 
spurned any more than natural food: but by 
degrees, with gentle perseverance, the neces- 
sity of medicines will be gone. 

In the breast of each one of us—in the 
most worldly important as well as in the most 
lowly—is One that needs care, comfort, sus- 
tenance. 

‘‘The Holy Spirit which dwelleth in thee 

79 


80 THE HEALING POWER 


shall be pure, and not be darkened by any evil 
spirit; but being full of joy shall be enlarged 
and feast in the body in which it dwells.”’ 

If the centre of existence is set in the hap- 
piness natural to it, evil can have no lasting 
power. 

Bodily illness is a symptom, an upthrow 
from an ill that exists far beneath the sur- 
face. 

If the Spirit is in grievous pain, sad, de- 
pressed, mortified, sooner or later its mes- 
sage will pass through and into the earthly 
vessel containing it; and even into those cir- 
cumstances of life making its immediate en- 
vironment. 

Let us reverse the process. Not from with- 
out, but from within shall happiness and true 
prosperity spring, blossom and bring forth 
fruit. 

Sown perhaps a tiny seed in the still place 
of the heart, watered daily with sane sugges- 
tions, our sense of life, here and now, will be- 
come a mighty tree, springing within us to 
everlasting strength and beauty; sheltering 
others, beside ourselves. 

No one but the own self can ever truly 
comfort the Holy One within—in so many 


THE ROAD TO ACHIEVEMENT 81 


hearts left and neglected like some lonely 
child. 

When we go into a quiet room and shut the 
door, we are alone with it. Comfort it. 
Nourish it; and that little Holy One will 
grow, wax strong in Spirit, fill with wisdom, 
while the grace of God, the Uplifter of the 
Universe, rests within it. 

Keep the self hourly in touch with the 
One Source of all supply by recognizing His 
care for us, as we partake of every daily need. 

See our Heavenly Father’s care for us, 
even if for the moment He feeds us on broken 
meat that others have left. Take it, not from 
the one who cast it from his door, but take 
and eat it from the hands of Him who gives 
all. 

Ally the self now and directly by the hum- 
blest—or maybe the grandest—things of life 
to Him by the simple fact of accepting all as 
gifts directly from Him; so we shall live in 
the Realm of the Spirit. 

Does he teach the squirrel to lay by nuts? 
He will work through us so that our material 
supply shall not be lacking. 

Does he send sunshine and rain for the 


82 THE HEALING POWER 


harvest? Sow our seeds, knowing that He 
will not fail. 

The thought of thankfulness brings peace 
instead of anxiety. Peace will give our own 
mind leisure and space in which to work. 

If we go in quietness and confidence where 
inner guiding calls us, it may be we shall 
find something that might have been over- 
looked, or never offered, if we had rushed 
about in wild despair. 

Does the question arise, why should not we 
be helped by outward circumstances as other 
people are? 

We shall be helped and hindered, too, by 
outward circumstances. This isa rule of life, 
and we are no exception. Help and hin- 
drance, both will come, as sun follows after 
rain; but unless there is something to germi- 
nate in the very self, we shall get sustenance 
from neither. 

Can we draw sustenance from hindrance? 

Certainly. To bear pain, merely passively 
to endure it, is to use power. The pain will 
pass but the power is ours for ever and ever. 

And it is rarely pain that stands between 
us and the Holy One that heals—not pain, 
nor sorrow, nor disappointment. These are 


THE ROAD TO ACHIEVEMENT 83 


often good angels, drawing us to the very 
place where comfort can be found. 

But if pain and sorrow do drive to the best, 
within and without us, they should not be our 
chosen comrades. 

Let us bravely accept their guiding, follow 
the warning finger; but having found the In- 
ward Rest and Peace and Happiness, part 
from sorrow in quiet dignity; and daily find 
ourselves without conscious effort, less 
troubled by pain. 

‘“‘Take with you... words,’’ said the 
prophet of old. Let us learn the inner conso- 
lation of some simple words to apply quickly 
and readily to all those sore places, often dis- 
regarded, that may rise and fester within us. 

Words heal. 

Such words are—Life, Love, Spirit, Fire, 
Wholeness, Peace. 

It is a little thing to carry a word with one 
all day; and yet that word may become flesh 
in our daily deeds, and re-incarnate in our 
living bodies. 

An unseen force is working surely, silently, 
irresistibly within us. We may learn the con- 
trol of the inner self, and by constant sug- 
gestion, by nourishing it with sane, sweet 


84 THE HEALING POWER 


thought, ally it to all that is highest and best 
within our knowledge; thus bringing our 
being into direct communion with Him Who 
is Life and Love. 

Then it is that we experience a great 
amelioration, a betterment in every condition 
of existence. Not only health improves, but 
we are happy. We are more useful to our- 
selves and others. We find the real, true 
self, and the conditions that interfered with 
natural growth will break away and dis-— 
appear. | 

The work will not be all on one side. We 
may begin in difficulty and doubt, pushing up 
from seeming darkness; but Light from 
above will quickly diffuse and shine upon 
the path. The life latent in us is but a poor 
thing compared with the Life that is its 
origin. We are invoking Heavenly Powers. 
Claim the inheritance. Be a child of God. 
Reach up and out to Him, knowing in Him 
immortality, in Him the inward source, the 
spring from all that is eternal. Rejoice in 
these things. We, too, are of the Kingdom 
of Heaven within us. Find it. Abide in it. 
Do not stint nor starve the inner nature; 
but let it blossom forth to love largely, live 


THE ROAD TO ACHIEVEMENT 85 


largely; and we shall find not only our true 
being, but the strong, constant Presence of 
our Father, which is in Heaven. 

Watch the self. Watch the hasty word, 
check the unkind action. It may injure 
others. It must injure us. 

Realize daily, hourly, the Source of 
strength. Draw upon it. Pour it forth 
freely. 

Let us work out our own salvation; if at 
times with tears and sweat, thinking upon 
Him Who repudiated the devil’s suggestion 
that He should use His spiritual attainments 
for His own gratification, Who lifted His 
Cross and bade us follow. 

And when with rejoicing ... why then: 
‘‘Sing we merrily unto God our Strength.’’ 


THE END 





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